


Risky Business

by Nonsuch



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, I love writing Titus, Jupiter Ascending Fic Challenge, Or Will It?, he's so fun!, in which trade will occur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 01:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5766670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonsuch/pseuds/Nonsuch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Titus Abrasax is bored, and when Titus Abrasax is bored, he seeks diversions. On this particular occasion, his diversion of choice happens to be located in a galaxy far, far away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Risky Business

My brother would say that the best thing about dealing with more primitive galaxies, those as yet untouched by the manifold tentacles of Orous, is the potential for dazzling profit margins. Our inventions are virtually magic to them – they can hardly conceive of our achievements in science, culture and art. And this, quite naturally, means they are more than happy to part with some of their crude (but profitable) resources in exchange for a mere sliver of our refinement.

I would disagree with my brother, however. I consider the obscure, provincial backwaters delightful for their capacity to divert.

I like to consider myself something of a connoisseur of diversions – I cherish new experiences, new challenges to my ability, new tests of my education. The galaxy to most recently come to my attention was rather small and wretched, but it did have something resembling the beginnings of a culture. There were some passable buildings and brothels on the core planet, I was reliably informed, and several of their artists and musicians were noteworthy. My scout assembled the names and personal details of numerous individuals of interest, either on account of their characters or their funds. I skimmed through the list during one long, long day where I didn’t move from my grandest bath, two of my favourite fish splices drifting through the depths, waiting to be summoned when my patience with reading elapsed. I skimmed the sheave, and a number of names stood out.

There was Yoda, who was reputed to be small, green and powerful in the arcane arts; he headed an order known as the Jedi, but they seemed far too stuffy and dull to endure. Further down the list was Maz Kanata, a female with orange skin whose head was said to resemble a shrivelled apricot; while her base of operations was reported to be a veritable hive of vice and perversity, she was dismissed immediately on account of her pronounced ugliness (nothing is more offensive to me than ugliness in a woman). The list progressed onto the marginal figures, kings, queens and crime bosses with pitiful enclaves of power and egos to compensate for them. The scout evidently had something of a sense of humour, and I found his description of King Prana of the western preserve of the planet Rattatak particularly delightful:

_As a child, Prana suffered the ignominy of watching as his father gradually gambled away vast stretches of his territory. A royal house that had once ruled the entire planet was reduced to reigning over less than a sixth of its former territory. Prana’s share of the land would have been eroded still further had he not hired a bounty hunter to murder his father before he could once more reach the underground betting pools of Coruscant. While his desire for power and prestige is great, he remains frustrated by his dead father’s betrayal. He exercises much of his psychology via his menagerie, which is said to cover a third of his remaining territory. He enjoys feeding serfs to the seething nests of firebeetles he lovingly tends to, and is in constant competition with his rivals to ensure that his menagerie remains the pre-eminent assembling of carnivorous creatures in the galaxy. While his resources are much reduced, he will go to almost any lengths – monetary or otherwise – to acquire the choicest specimens. Pompous, shrill and vain, in appearance Prana resembles your brother if your brother were to lack the restorative blessings of nectar, which is to say his skin is rotting, his breath is foul and his body is a vast and immobile mound of flesh._

He sounded penetratingly unpleasant, and since dear brother Balem had been most fastidious in avoiding my company I found myself drawn to the prospect of negotiations with a substitute. I smiled and dropped the sheave into the bath, allowing it to sink into the depths as I clicked my fingers to summon my splices to the surface.

.

.

.

There are many thousands of codes constituting many millions of precepts, conditions and rules for splice production. No one, however, pays much attention. There are three key rules to splice production and exchange that are generally followed:

  1. Splices are to have any predatory impulses suppressed.
  2. Splices are not to be transported to primitive worlds or uncontacted galaxies.
  3. Splices that prove to present a threat to human life are to be destroyed.



My personal splicer, of course, broke all of these rules when I tasked him with producing five splices of unparalleled ferocity, bloodthirstiness and beauty. That’s the joy of having a mother in charge of the most powerful business in the civilised ’verse. The worst that could happen would be a light scolding over dinner in the event that one of the creatures were to get lose and enact a massacre.

I permitted the splicer a year to work on his creations, and was glad of my generosity when I saw the finished specimens. These splices were more animal than man, and they were all deliciously monstrous. There was a lion splice with blood-stained teeth and luxuriant golden fur even I didn’t dare to stroke; a fly splice with enormous, buggy eyes and alarming, razor-sharp apparatuses jutting out from its head; a hyena splice that never stopped panting, its ravenous eyes constantly darting over the room; a shark splice with savage teeth that protruded from its vast mouth; and a mongrel that appeared to combine manifold elements carefully tooled to form a grotesque parody of nature.

“What is it?” I asked, peering at it with no little curiosity. It was hunched in the corner of its cage, its large, gleaming eyes fixed on my form.

“Oh, it’s made up of leftovers really. There’s nothing else quite like it. It has the venomous teeth of a viper, the claws of a panther, the tough skin of an elephant. And those are just the ingredients that initially come to mind. I used perhaps thirty genetic specimens, altogether. I trust that you approve?”

“I approve most thoroughly. Continue along the same lines, and be prepared to have a new one to show me upon my return.”

There was no real _need_ for me to visit Prana, but that was irrelevant – I wanted to. I was bored – I’d been bored for centuries. My sister only invited me to her alcazar when her latest Outer Ring lord was in absence, and Balem has proven extremely skilful at evading my company. I could have gone to mother, but had no desire to – I had long since learned that there’s little amusement to be found in going where you’re wanted.

So instead I boarded one of the discreet ships in my fleet, accompanied by a small retinue of 120 soldiers, dancers and splices. The journey had to be staggered to allow the engines to gather enough matter to make each jump, and I spent much of it engulfed in a blissful haze of sex and smoke.  The journey, after all, wasn’t where my interest lay – my interest was concentrated solely on my destination. I only deigned to emerge from my chamber when I was told we were making out final approach, wrapping myself in my finest velvet dressing gown and padding over to the viewing bay.

Rattatak was, as it turned out, an obscure little planet divided by a series of vast fences that lurched so far upwards they were visible from space. The planet was quite literally segmented, with those areas of land that had been gambled away each clearly betraying the disparate interests and preoccupations of their owners. One patch was an untended wasteland, a mass of tangled, green vegetation clearly visible from space. Another area was devoid of life entirely, having seemingly been purged of all its natural riches to make way for a gleaming installation that would have made brother proud with its resounding dullness.

Prana’s patch was by far the most diverse, and seeing it from space confirmed that I had been right to trouble myself with a visit. While it seemed like a wild, uncoordinated sprawl when it first began to reveal itself, the ingenuity and complexity of its design became more pronounced as we cut through the planet’s atmosphere. The enormous pens established to hold his pets came into view, revealing their different themes and textures – there was an enormous pool the size of a sea, a tropical landscape saturated with colours, an icy cliff face that met the clouds. I was impressed by the menagerie’s sophistication, and made a note to say as much when making my compliments.

Our ship landed with no permissions – I had commanded that all warnings be summarily ignored, with the shields up – and we were greeted (as I had expected) by a small squadron of guards. They were all rough men-at-arms, consisting of a variety of outer rim species – I knew none of their names, and found I cared too little enquire. I made no show of raising my arms in surrender as I left my ship, smiling jovially and gesturing to my guards as I addressed my welcoming committee. “While you may be sorely tempted to fire, I strongly advise against it. I don’t recommend finding out what my guards’ guns can do.”

With tiring predictability, one of the rogues at the front of the little gang jerked his pathetic rifle, aiming it in the direction of my face. The response from the two guards on either side of me was impressive with its swiftness. They both fired their laser cannons in the same instant, their aim immaculate. The man’s tense, sweaty face dissolved into a brilliant red flare, his body reduced to a fat pile of ash in the next instant.

I strode down the rest of the gangway with renewed confidence, extending my arms with a showman’s flair. “Anyone else?” I challenged, feeling supremely playful. The smell of charred flesh lingered in the air, and I knew from the men’s expressions that they didn’t find it quite as palatable as I did.

My question was, of course, met with silence – Prana’s men scattered without saying a word. With the way to Prana’s stronghold wide open, I made my progress. I walked with a veritable skip in my step. I can honestly say I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt quite so excited about the prospect of making a business deal.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Star Wars/Jupiter Ascending fic challenge over on tumblr! I do plan on continuing this one, so keep an eye on it - I simply ran out of time but wanted to post what I had before the deadline.
> 
> Comments and kudos are love!


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